Help - yucky egg!

[scootz]

Hi - I'm new to chickens as of late March this year. I have 10 pullets - 4 red stars and 6 ameraucanas. The red stars started laying eggs about a month ago and the ameraucanas haven't started laying yet. I'm getting anywhere from 1-3 eggs a day on average. They free-range in a 1600 sqft paddock that I rotate to fresh grass every couple of weeks. The chickens are locked up at night in a 12' x 4.5' chicken tractor. They have access to no-soy organic mix full-time, and water is always available. We give them a few treats now and again like tangerines, bread, bananas, cantaloupe and watermelon rinds, and I raise black soldier fly larvae, which I give them probably 20-30 live ones a week.

I noticed a couple of eggs since they started laying with what appears to be meat spots or blood spots. However today I cracked open a large egg (I thought it was a double-yolker since I get one every week or 2) and this is what I found:




As you can see the yolk is oval, mottled, and cloudy, and it has orange with red dots all over it. Beside the yolk in the white area appears to be some sort of hard seed or calcium deposit. I have seen a couple very small black or dark gray chunks attached to the yolk before in other eggs every so often, and figured they were just meat spots. But this one - I have no idea what it is. Any advice or clues as to what's going on here?

 

[aoxa]

How often are you collecting your eggs? This looks like a stinky egg.

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

Do you have a rooster? That looks like a fertilized egg that started to develop. Yuck!

 

[scootz]

Thanks for commenting. There is no rooster and it is not a stinky egg at all. I collect eggs 2-3 times a day. Sorry, I meant to include those 2 pieces of information in my original post.

 

[aoxa]

Thanks for commenting. There is no rooster and it is not a stinky egg at all. I collect eggs 2-3 times a day. Sorry, I meant to include those 2 pieces of information in my original post. 

Hmm.. Does this happen often, or is this a fluke?

 

[ll]

*nods* maybe a fertilized egg? I don't have alot of experience on the subject though.
Are you sure you don't have a young rooster hidden in with your pullets?

 

[aoxa]

It doesn't look fertile to me. My fertile eggs that have started to develop and die have lots of veining and it is in a circle pattern. The rest of the yolk is not affected, and never have I seen a green bean looking thing amongst the egg white.

 

[scootz]

Here's another pic after I flipped the yolk upside down. There is also a blood spot on the yolk. The extra chunk next to the yolk feels like an orange or tangerine seed. It's hard and if I press down on it with a fork it mashes a little - like a seed. Is it possible she digested a seed and it ended up in her ovaduct?

 

[Volkova]

Hi there!

How much protein are you feeding your chickens? Too much protein creates a lot of blood spots within eggs. Perhaps you should cut down on the larvae as it seems to be giving them too much protein. If your egg was fertile you should notice a very small white or sometimes red fleck by the yolk, when you incubate it, it should develop into veins and then into a embryo. Remember, the first couple of months eggs can be a bit unusual, so give it time and try to give them a solid laying diet, then give extra protein (larvae or insects) during moulting season.

 

[TheSpiceGirls]

Hmmm, that's bizarre. I would stop feeding them all citrus. Can make the eggs thin shelled and not a good treat for them. Maybe that's the source of your issues.